


Nothing To Hold On To

by Rcw99



Series: Things To Hold On To [1]
Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Comfort, Derealization, Friendship, Gen, Mental Health Issues, One Shot, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Shapes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 02:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10526919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rcw99/pseuds/Rcw99
Summary: Despite everything that happened, life in Possum Springs has moved on for Mae and her friends. Gregg and Angus are getting ready to move, and Bea is trying to repair her relationship with her father and maybe start learning to enjoy life a little more.And Mae is still struggling to figure out what to do with her life. Things have been going mostly alright for a while now, but she still has issues of her own to work out. And even though she’s home again and with familiar faces, sometimes she slips back down, and there’s nothing there for her to hold on to anymore.So it’s a good thing her friends are there to hold on to her.





	

They’re laughing at something, I can tell.

I’m not sure exactly what at, because I can’t hear anything except the rush of blood in my ears.

The beating of my heart in my chest.

It feels fit to burst.

I feel fit to burst.

Swelling up from the inside out.

And the outside in.

My mouth dry.

My body cold.

My limbs weak.

This had been creeping up on me all day.

I could feel it when I woke up this morning.

Rolling in like waves.

I could feel it as I sat through way too many stupid job interviews.

Covering me like a blanket.

And I could feel it when I met up with Them just a little bit ago.

Weighing down on me like—

He, next to me, says something loud and shrill and nudges me in the ribs.

Him says something next, and his deep voice rumbles my entire body.

There is more laughter.

My mouth smiles and laughs too. 

I just need to get through this.

I just need to leave and go home and cry and yell and sleep.

That’s all I need.

Everything would be better in the morning.

This would pass.

All I had to do was wait.

That’s all.

Now, He leans back into Him and says more things that my ears don’t hear.

Everything goes great for a few moments.

And then the bottom falls out from under me, and I feel as though I may explode.

Just like that, everything begins to fall away.

I’m here, and I’m all alone.

And She…

She notices it now.

She had noticed something was off when I had walked in the door.

I can feel her gaze on me from across the table.

Sharp and piercing.

I lift my head, and her face swims in front of me.

Smoke curling from her mouth.

The teeth.

Eyes.

Spines.

Dark blue and black and gray.

Shapes… and a nothingness.

She is, and nothing else.

She’s nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

There’s nothing.

And I am here, and nothing else.

That’s all.

That’s all its ever been.

She says something now.

I can see her mouth move.

Words forming into the air and falling away.

Nothing, still.

My hands clasp together in my lap in a desperate attempt to stop the shake that started up in them.

She reaches out across the table and my body flinches away.

My eyes shift over to He and Him, only to see them looking at me now too.

Yellow and black and ears.

Red and glasses and hat.

It’s all there.

It’s all just…there.

And they’re all just looking at me.

Looking at me with their eyes.

Big and large and round and circle.

Looking.

Looking at me.

And I can’t…

I can’t.

I can’t…

I…

“I have to go!” are the words that come tumbling out of my mouth.

At least, I hope so.

I couldn’t be sure what exactly my mouth said.

But I know I need to leave.

I need to go walk and go break something and go home and go sleep.

I can’t be here any longer.

I can’t.

I try to stand up from the table, but I can’t find my legs.

They’re not there, under me, like they normally are.

And I stumble and fall right onto the tiles of the floor.

The squares and lines and scratches and dirt.

There should’ve been pain, but I didn’t feel any.

I try to get up, but my arms can’t support me.

And then I try again, only to fall back down.

And then she’s there.

She holds me up and helps me find my legs again.

She knows.

I had told her.

She knows.

I sit back in the booth, my breath coming in short gasps.

The air can’t get down fast enough.

My lungs burn.

My eyes sting.

My skin is pins and needles.

And They’re all gathered around now.

Still looking down at me.

He and Him and Her.

All colors and shapes and things and nothing.

They’re not Them.

They’re not.

They are not here.

Only I am here.

I’m here.

I’m here, alone, surrounded by all this nothingness.

The table isn’t here.

The food isn’t here.

The Clik Clak isn’t here.

The sounds.

The smells.

The people.

None of it is _here._

None of it means anything.

It’s just me.

It’s just me.

Me and nothing.

Me and nothing, and nothing else.

And He and Him and Her are _there._

Across.

Away from me, here.

I try and focus on Them.

In some part of my mind, I know that I know Them.

But as I look back at Them, my eyes don’t recognize Them.

They’re just a blankness.

Shapes.

Colors.

Stuff.

They’re there, and I’m here.

They’re nothing.

They used to be things.

They used to mean something.

But not anymore.

One of Them says something again, and I can’t hear it from across the nothingness.

My head droops down, my ears lying flat against my skull.

My eyes clench shut.

And then open again.

They shut.

And open.

Everything is still there.

And there’s nothing here, with me.

It’s all just things, there.

Things with no meaning.

No substance.

Just shapes.

A nothingness.

My eyes clench shut again, determined to block it all out.

But there’s a nothingness in me too, behind my eyes.

In my mind.

In my head.

All around me.

Everywhere.

Suffocating me.

Smothering me.

And it’s even worse than the nothingness outside.

So my eyes open again.

And they focus in on a crumpled cigarette lying forgotten on the table, smoke still spiraling out from it, filling the air.

The harsh scent is suddenly _here_ with me, and I latch onto it, desperate for anything to hold on to.

I inhale deep, and the smoke burns my nose and my mouth and my lungs.

A violent cough erupts from my body, choking on the air.

And just like that, that’s all here with me too.

The cigarette, the smoke.

And me.

All here, surrounded by emptiness.

I cough again, and He or Him or Her presses a glass of ice water to my lips.

It goes down easy.

The cold spreads through my body, filling it up, and, again, it’s a _something_ in this void of nothing.

The glass is set down on the table right in front of me.

And I can see it.

I can see it.

It’s here.

I grab for it and hold it as tight as I possibly can.

I concentrate on the cold.

The ice.

It’s all I can feel.

It is all that’s here with me, and the cigarette and the smoke.

My eyes stare at it intently as I let the cold seep into me.

The cold is real.

I can feel it.

The glass is real.

I can feel it.

The table is real.

I can feel it.

It’s all here.

Here, along with me.

No longer just meaningless shapes.

No longer just a nothing.

I take a deep breath, feeling it expand in my chest.

And I let it out.

“Mae?” It’s her voice, cutting in through the haze. Bea’s voice.

I let the sound of my name settle into my head, holding on to it as well.

It is real.

It is here.

She’s real.

She’s here too, now.

I look up at Bea, sitting across from me. Her eyes are worried. For me, I suppose.

Her face is all there, like I know it to be.

It’s here.

She speaks again. “You doing alright? Should we take you to the hospital?”

The words shoot through my mind and smolder there.

I force my mouth to open and my lips to move. 

I slowly shake my head and swallow a lump in my throat. “…No… I… I’m okay…” My voice is shaky and quiet, and even I can tell that she doesn’t quite believe me.

But Bea just leans back in the booth and doesn’t say a word.

Her eyes never leaving me.

Beside me, he—Gregg—is buzzing with nervous energy. Bouncing in his seat. An arm wrapped around my shoulders. Holding on to me. Fanning me with a napkin in his free paw.

Now he’s here too.

I can feel the worry and the fear and the sadness pouring out of him.

And then there’s him, Angus, peering at me through his glasses, watching me with quiet concern.

Neither of them knows what’s going on. I had never told them. I always just kept putting it off.

Like everything else in my life.

That’s me. Mae Borowski, free-lance procrastinator.

“You sure you’re okay, dude?” Gregg’s words waiver ever so slightly.

I nod and take another gasping breath. “Y-yeah… I’m okay… I just…”

But I can’t find the words I want to say. They slip away from me before I can get them out.

I grip the glass harder, digging my claws in, trying to burn the cold into my skin.

I breathe in again.

And out.

In.

And Out.

Everything is silent for a minute, and I’m suddenly afraid I’m slipping away again.

But then Angus reaches over and clutches my paw, squeezing it tight.

And he’s here with me now too.

He smiles reassuringly, but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t push any further.

I smile back. A real smile this time.

Gregg and Angus and Bea.

And me.

We’re all here now.

And everything else, the rest of the Clik Clak, the rest of the people, is all still there, but it doesn’t bother me as much. I can manage it.

I find my words again, so I speak them. “…I’m okay guys, really….” I lick my lips. “When I get like this, I… uhh… I just need to relax, ya know? A visit to the hospital won’t help….”

The three of them exchange glances.

Bea is the first to respond. “She explained it all to me a while back.” She takes out another cigarette and lights up. “I think she’s okay right now. I trust her enough to know that she wouldn’t lie about something as serious as this.”

“Thanks, Bea.”

She’s so good.

They’re all so good to me, even if I don’t deserve it.

I glance at Gregg and Angus, at how they’re still not quite sure what’s going on. I smile again. “…I’ll tell you guys later, okay? Not right now. Too tired for that…” I take in a shaky breath. “You two have deserved to know for a long time…”

“It’s fine, Mae,” says Angus.

“Yeah. Don’t sweat it, dude!” says Gregg.

“We’re here for you,” says Bea.

And they are.

They’re here. 

They’re here with me.

It’s wonderful.

It really is.

Gregg bangs on the table, rattling the silverware and jolting my body. “C’mon, dude. Let’s just forget the food. We’ll take you back to our place to sleep, yeah? We’ll call your parents.”

The others murmur in agreement.

I nod my head.

I leave the glass of water on the table. I can still feel the cold, and that’s enough for me right now. I can get some straight ice when I get to Gregg and Angus’ place. Or maybe something hot. That would work too.

And so they all wiggle out of the booth and help me to my feet.

I stumble at first, but manage to stand mostly unassisted. My legs had come back by now.

Angus offers to carry me, but I refuse. I have to retain some dignity, after all. As long as I can walk, I will walk.

We four shuffle out of the restaurant, each of them hovering around me to make sure I don’t fall again.

But it’s okay.

We walk down the dark and mostly empty street toward our destination.

It’s all still nothingness around me. Just things with no meaning. Just shapes and outlines and stuff and fuzziness. Everything else is there, just out of my reach, but it’s okay, because here isn’t as lonely as it was before. I have my friends with me here, and that’s enough.

I look at them now, really look at them. Gregg and Angus and Bea.

And I hold on to them.

And they hold on to me.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, hope that wasn't too difficult to read or understand. Wanted to do something a little different.


End file.
